Racehorse Read Online Free PDF Page A

smooch!”
    Carole blushed. “I guess she did. She’s just so gentle—”
    “Yes, and maybe too gentle,” he said, sighing. “She’s got more gentle in her than she has speed.”
    “You mean to tell me that this sweet horse is a racehorse?” Carole was surprised.
    “That remains to be seen,” Mr. McLeod said, shrugging. “She’s three years old and hasn’t raced much before this. Her bloodlines are impeccable, but there’s something missing.…”
    Carole looked at the mare. She had four legs, a tail, amane, a head, and everything else Carole thought essential to a horse. “What’s missing?” she asked.
    “She’s got the sweetest disposition of any horse I’ve ever owned,” Mr. McLeod said.
    “But what’s missing?” Carole persisted.
    “That’s it,” he said. Then he smiled, understanding Carole’s confusion. “You know the story about Ferdinand the bull? He was a total failure in the bullring because he just wanted to smell the flowers?”
    Carole nodded. She knew the story.
    “Well, I don’t think Prancer has the drive to compete. She’s fast enough. She certainly does respectable times on the practice track, but when she’s competing with other horses, it’s like she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings and win. But maybe she has a few surprises for me. Although she’s always been gentle and easy to handle, she’s never been as affectionate with anybody as she was with you just then. Maybe that’s what’s been missing.”
    “What?” Carole asked.
    “True love,” Mr. McLeod said.
    Carole thought he was joking, but when she looked at him, she could tell he wasn’t.
    “If a horse really cares about something—or someone—it can help that horse do things that are otherwise impossible. So far, Prancer hasn’t seemed to care very much about winning. I’m giving her a chance to proveme wrong at the next meet. I’ve got a lot of money tied up in Prancer. She’s going to have to come through for me, or I can’t afford to feed her anymore.”
    There it was again—money. Carole had to do some more thinking about that aspect of horses. She stepped back and let Judy examine Prancer and go over the medication records. Although she wanted to listen, she found that Judy and Mr. McLeod seemed to be talking a new language, and it all became a blur. The only thing that remained clear to her was that Prancer was as pretty and sweet a horse as she’d ever known, and it was very hard to understand why Mr. McLeod was so obviously disappointed in her.

L ISA GLANCED AT the clock over Ms. Ingleby’s head. There were twenty minutes left of English, and then she could go. She usually loved school, especially Ms. Ingleby’s class. Today, however, she was meeting Stevie at Pine Hollow and they were going for a ride. If it came to a choice between English and riding, well, riding would always win. The minute hand on the clock jumped forward. Nineteen minutes.
    There was something else bothering Lisa, though. She was a little nervous about the essay on “Life” that she had handed in on Monday morning.
    When she came into class today, she’d spotted the stack of papers on Ms. Ingleby’s desk. The teacher had definitely finished grading the essays and would be returningthem soon. Lisa sighed. She dreaded seeing her grade.
    The problem was, Lisa was used to getting A’s. It was just about the only grade she ever got, and she didn’t like getting anything
but
an A. In her essay she’d written about Pepper and the fact that he was getting old, but she’d also written some things about his life. She knew that her essay was very sentimental, and she wasn’t at all sure that essays should be sentimental. Yet somehow she hadn’t been able to help herself. She felt sentimental about Pepper.
    Ms. Ingleby cleared her throat. That was a sign that the moment was coming. Lisa shifted uneasily in her seat.
    “Now, about these papers,” Ms. Ingleby began. She had a few general comments to make. They